One important consideration: COVID-19 didn’t generate trends. It accelerated them. For example, the traditional commute into the office and then back out into the suburbs late in the day was due for a major transformation even before COVID came along. Nonetheless, the virus’ impact to sharpen and refocus the existing trends has been striking.
For decades a large portion of the white collar work force in the United States has lived in suburbs, commuted into "the office" in the morning, then headed back in late afternoon or early evening. It is a paradigm celebrated n stage and screens large and small.
But THAT paradigm was looking rather tired even before Covid hit. The pandemic brought this to clarity -- we can do without it. There are a variety of reasons why we ought to do without it.
Many firms -- in law, accounting, software development, etc. -- in major cities such as New York and Boston scheduled return-to-work dates as early as the spring of 2021. They then cancelled them. This was on the surface a reaction to the Delta variant (it ain't over yet). But there was another theme behind the surface, even then and it has become ever more important since. A return to a prior normalcy is not pressing when the normalcy was no all that great, and was running largely on an inertia that has since dispersed.
Christopher, what is your evidence of the trend before COVID? I was not aware of it.
ReplyDeletePeople tend to forget already that before Zoom there was Skype. And Skype's dramatic growth was evidence of the increased willingness to work at great distances from one's close colleagues. Skype was released in August 2003. Twenty years ago already. EBay bought it for $2.6 bn two years later. It had roughly 100 million users at the beginning of 2020, before Covid-19 had made its way out of China. Covid clearly didn;t create this market, or the broader need it represents.
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